TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online
Rays Plan Sets Sail
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Published: November 29, 2007
Updated: 11/29/2007 12:22 am
ST. PETERSBURG - If all goes as planned, downtown St. Petersburg will have a new open-air baseball stadium, shaded by a massive white sail, ready for games in 2012 and close enough to the water for home runs to splash down into the Bay.
Tampa Bay Rays baseball executives officially released the design of their hoped-for $450 million stadium during a Wednesday afternoon news conference and unveiled a sophisticated plan to finance its construction at Progress Energy Park, Home of Al Lang Field.
They envision a baseball park with the neighborhood feel of a Wrigley Field in Chicago or Camden Yards in Baltimore, yet an open-air sailboat feel altogether different than the enclosed dome of Tropicana Field.
The yet unnamed stadium would have a relatively few 34,000 seats, 40 luxury boxes and a view to the north, with Bayshore Drive running underneath part of the right-field seats.
The most distinctive feature would be a 320-foot tower beyond the outfield to hold up a grid of cables over the field like a trellis. In the case of strong sun or rain, the tower would winch up a white tarp stored in the top rim of the stadium to cover all the seats within eight minutes, the team said.
When deployed, the sail would become a major feature of the St. Petersburg skyline, akin to a gigantic sailboat docking downtown. That unfurling fabric design would be new to the United States, though similar versions have been built in Europe.
"We know this is a huge undertaking," said Rays owner Stuart L. Sternberg during an interview with The Tampa Tribune.
Sternberg said his position is to "seek a stadium but never demand it," noting that the team could stay in Tropicana Field if voters reject his ideas.
To pay for the stadium, Rays officials envision a multiyear partnership with St. Petersburg and Florida and to sell the current 85-acre Tropicana Field site for multiuse retail and residential development, then use the proceeds to help fund the new stadium.
Rays executives took pains to say fans would not suffer in the outdoor heat. Facing the stadium north and shading it with a sail could drop the temperature inside by 10 degrees without blocking the view of the water, they say. They're envisioning large fans to stir the air, and the structure is designed for wind to pass through. A concourse beneath the seats would be air-conditioned.
Officials also envision starting games later in the evening during the hottest months, and holding Sunday games at night instead of the afternoon.
Joseph Spear, a senior architect with the firm HOK that designed the new field, said the foldable sail would be first of its kind in the United States, and only made possible with a new kind of durable fabric called Tenara.
The AM Rothenbaum Tennis Stadium in Hamburg, Germany, has a similar tentlike design, with the tarp stored in midair above the stadium, as does the new Commerzbank soccer stadium in Frankfurt, Germany.
Baseball's Smallest Park
The proposed Rays site, so close to the water, is just 10 acres, making it the smallest field yet for Major League Baseball, he said.
"I think fans will get it in their heads wondering if the players can hit it out into the water," Spear said.
The new stadium would require remaking parts of Bayshore Drive, adding 0.6 acres of land east into the Bay and moving the road farther out so the road would wind under the right field seating area. Some preliminary plans call for an elevated restaurant cantilevered over Bayshore, with glass walls so diners could see the Bay and the field at the same time.
Besides the field itself, the plans call for an open park to the north, and a string of restaurants and retail shops at street level, merging into the rest of downtown.
Parking at the new field would be an issue, because the team does not have room on that site to build large parking structures. Instead, the Rays want fans to park in dispersed lots throughout St. Petersburg and walk to the stadium past restaurants and shops, similar to how fans in Chicago walk to Wrigley Field and fans in Baltimore walk to Camden Yards.
The Rays offered to pay $150 million of the stadium cost through higher rent installments. The team plans to ask the Florida Legislature for up to $60 million, about half of which would go toward interest costs, and also hopes money from the sale of the 85-acre Tropicana site would make up part of the remaining $240 million.
Emil Pavone, president of the St. Petersburg Downtown Residents Civic Association, questioned the stadium plans. "Our residents have serious concerns. Questions about the ability of them to fund it, to handle the noise, all those people for 80 games a year, the traffic and other things," he said.
Plans For Tropicana's Future
Much of the plan for both sites hinges on the ability to sell the current Tropicana Field site to developers for at least $240 million.
To help illustrate their dreams, Rays executives hired one developer, Houston-based Hines Interests, to draw plans for a neighborhood there with 1 million square feet of new retail and restaurant space plus about 900,000 square feet of residential units, mainly four- and five-story apartment and condo buildings, interspersed with boulevards, ponds and parks.
Booker Creek, now basically a drainage ditch, would be turned into an urban creek, with ponds for kayaking.
The site at Tropicana Field is owned by Pinellas County and leased by the Rays. The lease allows the Rays to play baseball there or develop the site for another use. The Rays hope that if the sale is successful, the city will use the proceeds to help build a stadium on the downtown waterfront.
Team officials did not elaborate on what would happen if the Tropicana Field site didn't generate $240 million.
If construction goes as planned, work would be done in stages, allowing the team to continue to use Tropicana until the new venue opens.
The next step in the process is for politicians and the public to review the plans and decide how and whether they would be financed.
Stadium Q&A
Q: How much will it cost and who will pay for it?
A: The initial price tag is $450 million, and the Rays have committed to funding $150 million of the cost. They hope to get $30 million from the state and raise the rest of the money through the sale of the 85-acre Tropicana Field site, which would be redeveloped into a retail and residential complex. Rays officials vowed that they would not use any existing tax revenue or seek new tax revenue from St. Petersburg or Pinellas County.
Q: Where will everyone park?
A: There is no on-site parking in the plans, but the Rays insist there will actually be more parking available than is currently the case at Tropicana Field. There are 12,000 publicly accessible spots downtown within a 15-minute walk of the Al Lang Field site and the Rays could build 5,000 overflow spots into the Trop site and run shuttles from there to the new ballpark.
Q: What about the summer heat and humidity?
A: There's no way around it; weather will definitely be an issue. Rain shouldn't be a problem thanks to the retractable fabric roof that can be fully extended from its housing out to the 320-foot mast in center field in eight minutes. The plan is to keep the ballpark covered during the day to keep heat from building up and play most of the games at night. Team studies showed the new park would be "significantly" cooler than the Texas Rangers' outdoor ballpark in Arlington (the Rangers play nearly all of their home games at night, even on Sundays) and should be cooler than Atlanta's Turner Field.
Q: What happens next?
A: Wednesday's unveiling was the start of what is sure to be a year-long marketing campaign as the team looks ahead to a referendum expected to go before St. Petersburg voters in November 2008. Any new downtown waterfront development other than parkland must be approved by the voters. In the meantime, the Rays (working through the city) will seek a developer for the Tropicana Field site. If the referendum is approved, construction on the new ballpark and redevelopment of the Trop site would begin in mid-2009. Retail and housing on the Trop site is scheduled to open in 2011 with work continuing for two more years after that, and the new ballpark would open in 2012. The Rays would continue to play at Tropicana Field through the 2011 season.
Q: Is there a chance the ballpark won't come to fruition?
Q: Is there a chance the ballpark won't come to fruition?
A: Absolutely. The Rays were quick to acknowledge that it wouldn't be an easy process and plenty of work remains. A defeat in the referendum would kill it on the spot, and winning that vote is no sure thing even if the Rays aren't asking the public to put tax dollars toward the stadium. The project also would be in trouble of the sale of the Tropicana Field site doesn't fill the funding gap that currently exists, or if the Florida Legislature declines to provide the money the Rays are seeking.
Marc Lancaster
Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at rmullins@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7919.
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Reader Comments
Posted by ( NOTAFAN ) on November 29, 2007 at 10:31 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
It is OBVIOUS that the developers have never been to an outdoor baseball game in Florida.
1-The fan seating faces West, so the fans will be sweat-soaked and sunburned by the end of the game.
2-It seems to preclude the stadium for any other use as the fans will not even be able to see the water from their seats.
3-In the event of a hurricane, the storm surge would prevent the new stadium from being used as a "safe" site.
4-There is almost NO parking available in downtown St.Pete (unless the airport were to become a parking garage).
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Posted by ( signit4bes ) on November 29, 2007 at 11:23 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
I like the design, but not the location. I say move the Rays to Downtown Tampa, in port/channelside area in order to have Selmon Expressway/I4 access. This way, the Rays can tap into markets from Orlando/I4 corridor, and I75 from the north. Eventually, THERE WILL BE A RAIL along I4, and this will fit in. Dale Mabry cannot facilitate 81 games/year, but Channelside region can (it works for hockey). OR, keep it "in St Pete" and move it to site of Derby Lane on Gandy.
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Posted by ( MLNFL ) on November 29, 2007 at 1:58 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
The thought of an evening game on the bay is a quantum leap over the indoor pinball atmosphere of the Trop with its steep pit design and narrow seat aisles.
The Pier, restaurants and shops downtown would bring me in before game time to eat and cruise the shops.
The breeze thru design and a tarp that blocks the daytime sun look like a winner. The smell of salt air combined with the crack of the bat would get me away from my big screen and A.C.
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Posted by ( tdokkel ) on November 30, 2007 at 12:50 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
The Rays do NOT own the Trop. So while it is not a new or existing "tax" - it is over $400M of public funds. It's a very clever/sneaky way to present it.
Think of it this way. The Rays propose to "redevelop" the land your home is on - but - instead of giving the profits to you, the land owner, the team keeps them instead. Sound good to you?
Please note - being a fan of the team doesnt mean you have to be a village idiot that blindly supports a horrific deal like this stadium plan. You can love the team, support the team, and yet still be smart enough to refuse handing them $400M of our public money.
I can take Carl Crawford in the 1st round of my fantasy draft and still judge this plan on it's merits. It's a bad deal for the public.
Why do so many of you struggle with this?
What the Rays are asking for is a total rip off. It's absurd. Seriously, if the team asked you to put on a dress and lipstick - would you do that too?
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Posted by ( rmscs ) on December 1, 2007 at 9:18 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Agreed, why don't the Rays say:
"We are going to sell the stadium that you, the taxpayers, own and keep your money. Oh yeah - we expect you to pay off the remaining debt on the old stadium too."
That clears it up for me, I wonder why the newspaper can't say that?
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